Get more BJJ techniques in my Totally Awesome Journal.
First, before anyone gets confused and thinks this is going to be about x-guard, here is cross guard:
Cross guard is based on cross gripping the sleeve, grabbing or underhooking the leg, and bringing both legs to the same side.
Introduction
A while back, I shot a series of tutorials on a guard game that my training partner Trog has been playing. He does cross guard in the same style as Pe de Pano and Tinguinha, and he knows that others are interested in it so he wanted to show how he had developed his game.
Trog was happy to share it freely, but his main concern was that he wouldn't be able to show the dynamics of the game in static photos. The way you need to have loose hips and swing them freely, how you get your opponent rocking back and forth and play with his weight on posture, how you suddenly launch your hips in different direction -- these are hard enough to teach in person, so they are even harder to show in pictures.
When I first put together these tutorials, Trog didn't want me to put them out unless he felt they adequately expressed these points. He said he'd rather just trash it than put out a bad instructional, since he doesn't want people getting messed up for trying clunky Internet Jiu-Jitsu.
And it just so turns out that Trog wasn't happy with the first run of photos we took, and so this wasn't going to be put up. But after showing it to a couple people in private, I found that if someone really wanted to get this game, they would still be able to learn a lot from this, especially if they took the time to go over it in detail and get a feel for it first.
Heartened to hear this, Trog retook some of it and added more details to make up for what he felt was lacking in the first set. I also found footage of it being taught and used in competition, so the motion of the sweeps can be show in real time too.
What I find really interesting is how he developed his cross guard game without the aid of instructionals. Only recently has he been watching Tinguinha's and Pe de Pano's instructionals on it, but what you'll learn here came mostly from his own experimentation with the basic he learned from Eduardo, our instructor. If you've seen those videos, you'll see how Trog has a slightly different style and does some of the positions and grips differently.
Basic Grips, Positioning and Sweep
There are several ways to grip and to get to cross guard, but he is the safest way that Trog does.
With his right hand, he cross grips their sleeve. You can use a claw grip, but Trog uses a pistol grip since it is less stressful on his fingers.
He grabs their leg with his left hand. Here he is grabbing the fabric of the pants, but you can also underhook the leg (as we'll do later).
Trog said he started gripping the pants after watching Pe de Pano use it in competition, since you can keep the grip when they stand, which isn't easy with the underhook. He still underhooks the leg a lot, but he's started using this grip more for standing guys (and for me, since I get him with my reverse omoplata passes, where I take the crucifix instead of passing his guard).
Next, how he gets to the official cross guard position. He uses a few other positions before going to it, which allow him to get there securely.
When he first opens his guard, he brings his knee across their chest. They'll often drive into you when you open like this so having the knee there helps him control the space
He'll drive his knee into the chest and stretch his body out to force their weight back. He's creating space to start bringing his leg over their head.
With them shoved back, he'll bring his foot up and step on their biceps and shoulder to create even more space. He said to expect them to grab your pants if you do this for more than a second.
With all that space opened up, he can throw his leg over to the other side of their head and start playing cross guard proper.
